Digital Bob Archive

Terrorist attacks are far too much in the news of late but so far have had little direct impact upon this area. But more than 70 years ago an attack - it would almost certainly be labeled terrorist today - caused a sudden sizeable exodus from the then thriving town of Treadwell. That was a few years before a local disaster shut down the Treadwell mines and caused the virtual abandonment of the town.

The terrorist attack occurred nearly half way around the world at a place called Sarajevo, in Bosnia, where an 18-year-old Serb student shot and killed Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife, the Duchess of Hehenberg. Earlier in the day, which was June 28, 1914, a bomb thrown at the royal couple had failed to injure them.

Exactly a month later, Austria-Hungary declared war on Servia (sometimes spelled Serbia). Russia supported Servia; Germany backed Austria-Hungary, and soon most of Europe was at war. All of which would have had little to do with Treadwell except that of the approximately 1900 men employed there a large percentage were what were loosely classified as Slavonians.

They were registered from Montenegro, Dalmatia, Servia, Bosnia, Austria and Croatia, and there were between 500 and 600 of them in Treadwell and Douglas when the war started. Many were in the military reserves back home, and they were very loyal.

War was first declared on July 28 and three days later Sam Locovich and Peter Rosovich left to take their places in the Servian army. They were followed by scores of others, men with names like George Scoppi, Duain Kuradjich, Nicola Dabanovich and Luka Lazarovich. Many, it was reported, had worked at Treadwell for four or five years and a few even longer.

A little later, on August 26, Editor Charles Hopp of the Douglas Island News penned this editorial comment: \"Just now, men born in foreign lands are quitting good jobs in Alaska that they may travel to the other side of the globe to cast their lives into the deadly maelstrom in defense of their country. We sometimes call them ignorant foreigners when, without a doubt, they have attained a degree of personal patriotism seldom equalled in this land of the free and home of the brave.\"

Nothing further is recorded locally of those men. Most, perhaps all of them fought on the side of the Allies, but not in the armies of England, France or the United States. They left no families in Douglas or Treadwell and few if any had relatives here. For those who survived what was a very bloody war, there were no jobs at Treadwell to come back to and today they are all but forgotten on Gastineau Channel.